


Shattered Skies

by Hagar, SailorSol



Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Grief, M/M, PTSD, Recovery, Siblings, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hopeverse (family AU). The Gibbs-Mallard family tries to pick up in the aftermath of one disaster after another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How To Train Your Puma

**Author's Note:**

> As the tags say, this story is set in an AU. Other stories in the same continuity can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hopencis). The first part of this story is set in the immediate aftermath of [Find Your Way In](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hopencis/works/194810).
> 
>  **Content advisory:** emotional manipulation and its aftermath, grief, and general messed-up-ness.

It’s six weeks after the Return when it happens. It’s a random night in the middle of the week, and Tony is sprawled on top of the covers of his bed with a bowl of popcorn, watching _The Fugitive_ to get his mind off things. Also because _The Fugitive_ actually makes sense, within its own frame, and Tony knows something about what will happen next, and these are two qualities that his life has been missing for entirely too long.

He never hears his door open, just looks up randomly and then nearly spills the popcorn all over the bed (something good about the bowl being half-empty, who knew) because Ziva is standing there in the shirt and shorts she’s gone to bed in hours ago.

“Tell me again how you’re not a ninja,” he says. She hates ninja jokes, and he knows it, but this is actually his way of displaying that he doesn’t resent her for existing.

“Because I am not a Medieval Japanese spy for hire,” she deadpans promptly.

Typical smartass. Tony opens his mouth to toss it right back at her, but she’s quicker to ask: “Can I watch the movie with you?”

Tony almost says several different things, but Timmy’s been his brother long enough for Tony to know that it isn’t about the movie, and he’s been giving a damn about the girl long enough to know that she was pricklier than Pa about some things.

So he says, “Sure, but it’s my popcorn,” and doesn’t scoot over to make room for her in any way.

Ziva doesn’t flop down on the bed next to him because Ziva does not _flop,_ but he thinks that that was Ziva trying to imitate normal human motion. She starts out six, maybe eight inches from him, leaning against the headboard with her legs stretched in front of her, but by the time the popcorn bowl is only quarter-full she is curled up against him.

No: she is curled up _into_ him, face all but buried in his side, and Tony has the dreadful sense that she is shaking. He can’t see it, when he glances down at her out of the corner of his eye, but he can feel it. It scares the hell out of Tony. He’s caught Pa in the basement at 2 a.m. enough times to accept that anyone can have a bad night, and Ziva _is_ only fourteen even if she was raised by wolves and Tony can sort of get how she’d end up on his door if Pa’s and Dad’s door is closed, which is a Signal because Pa’s and Dad’s door is usually open.

Tony is familiar with the following categories of human touch: head slaps, sports tackles, girlfriends and Abby. Ziva does not fit into any of these categories, and that’s before he even starts to think about the trembling.

Tony has absolutely no idea what to _do,_ even if he presently ranks second out on Ziva’s Least Hated list, between Pa and Aunty J. If this was Abby he’d squish and tickle, and if it was Tim he’d put on his best Pa, but this is in an entirely different beast.

He does know that he isn’t supposed to be taut with anxiety, though. It’s not in the job description. So instead, moving very, very, _very_ slowly, and hoping as hell that he won’t get a dislocated shoulder, smashed fingers and a concussion for it, Tony very carefully places his left arm around Ziva.

And then breathes a sigh of relieve because a tiny bit of the portion drains out of her, and that makes a huge part of the portion drain out of him.

The relief, awkwardness and mortification made sense in the situation. By the time the popcorn bowl is empty, Tony is trying to find room for the odd sense of pride.

 

* * *

 

Tony has a list of all the things Ziva doesn’t like for people to do, and he’s going through them systematically, over and over again. It’s a thankless job, but somebody has to do it. Besides, the desensitization even works, sometimes.

So he makes noise in the kitchen while Ziva is watching a movie (no shoes precision-aimed at his head), plunks down on the couch with not an inch between them (no crescent-kick to his shin) and grabs the remote even as he asks “Whatchoo watching?”

Or tries to ask, anyway. He gets cut off at the _Whatch_ , because Ziva’s elbow catches him in the sternum and it’s several long seconds before he can so much as breathe, let alone speak. And then it has to be his self-destructive streak taking the helm, because what he says is, “Well, that was nice, kitten.”

Ziva pulls herself up as much as she can while sitting and, turning slightly to face him, demands: “What did you just call me?”

“Kitten,” he says, rubbing his aching sternum. “It’s short for puma-kitten.”

“Pumas don’t have kittens.”

“Yes they do. Do you think pumas come into this world fully-fledged monsters?”

“Pumas do not have kittens. They have cubs.”

Tony puts on his thinking-face. “Pumas are big _cats,_ so, I’m pretty sure they have _kittens._ ” And on the last word he switches to the mad fierce expression he sometimes uses when taunting Timmy.

“Rawr,” Ziva says dryly, and Tony yelps and swats her hand away from where she’s dug holes into his shoulder.

“ _Rabid_ puma-kitten,” he complains. “Did you have your shots?”

“I should ask you the same question,” she retorts.

In the same tone he uses to call Timmy _geek-o,_ Tony says: “Kitten.”

Ziva huffs, secures the remote away from him, and turns back to her movie. Tony grumbles a little more, and then settles into the couch, puts his legs up on the low, magazine-ridden table and does his best to not grin his head off.

Ziva is _his_ rabid little puma-kitten, now.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere in Georgetown stands a large, ornate, perfectly maintained mansion that has been a Shepard residence for four generations. On a Sunday morning, the owner of that mansion, Jenny Shepard, may be found several blocks away, making herself coffee in the kids-worn kitchen of Jethro Gibbs and Donald Mallard.

The large house is almost impossibly quiet. Jethro is downstairs in the basement, working at yet another boat; Ducky and Abby are visiting Ducky’s mom; Tim is at his computers, and it’s an even chance whether he’s doing homework or conquering virtual magical kingdoms.

What Tony and Ziva are doing Jenny isn’t quite sure, but as these _are_ Tony and Ziva, she knows that she (and the rest of the neighbourhood) will be treated to a vocal display at some point. In the meantime, Ducky’s geranium in the window is pretty, the house has the soothing vibe of being both lived-in and peaceful and somewhere in the kitchen are Abby’s chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies waiting to be found.

Then there are the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle from the back yard.

It takes Jenny three, maybe four seconds to make it from the kitchen to the back porch. Tony is lying on his stomach in the grass, one arm bent behind his back by Ziva, who is sitting on top of him, knees digging into his back. As soon as Jenny sees that she also sees that Ziva’s back is free of strain, her shoulders and arms relaxed, and that nothing in Tony’s body language suggests pain or distress.

Tony is, in fact, laughing.

Jenny edges back before she’s seen, as much as she wants to stand there at stare at the twin miracles of Ziva playing and Tony laughing.

They’d nearly lost Tony when they lost Kate. That’s a fact, just like it’s a fact that nearly all of Tony’s memories of not being half of Tony-and-Kate are from a family he’d rather forget and from when he’d been a small child besides. To lose that much when you’re only twenty, and thus had the time to build only so little self -

It had been so visible, in the first months after, in the way that even Tony’s gesticulation depended on Kate to complete it. Maybe one day Jenny’s memory of Tony’s expression whenever he’d yet again realized that would dim, but Jenny knows these memories will stay sharp and clear for years.

In retrospect, Jenny knows why Jethro was that hellbent about taking Ziva in, why following Kate’s death he’d invested so much in this child that he did not have to take instead of in the kids he’s been already committed to. At the time, though, Abby had called Ziva _It_ and Tim wouldn’t meet her eyes, and Tony and Ducky could have been furniture for all that Ziva seemed to care for them.

Then happened Pinpin Pula, and the _Cape Fear_.

 

* * *

 

She had sat at more dinners at this table then she can count. They were peaceful dinners, and happy dinners, and angry dinners; they were all family dinners. She had never thought she would sit at Jethro’s dining table, that she had seen the man assemble, sand and polish, like this.

 _Like this_ was in silence, and more than a little fear; _like this_ was with Jethro missing in body and Ducky missing in spirit; _like this_ was with only Tony sitting at the table with Ducky and her, and with Ziva at the stove; _like this_ was to have Ziva at the stove, stern and silent as always, instead of Ducky and Abby and their endless merry chatter.

It surprised Jenny none that Ziva could cook. It surprised Jenny none that Ziva cooked while Tony made conversation, somehow, filling in his Dad’s silence with informed guesswork. Tony did that a lot, lately, carrying on conversation with imaginary replies. Tony was like the proverbial felled tree that way, unsure of his own existence unless witnessed.

What surprised Jenny was how many of the imaginary replies Tony attributed to Ziva. Tony had been the one of the kids who made any effort to communicate with Ziva, but there had been no trust there, on either side. Now there clearly was, as evident by the way they moved around each other earlier, Tony setting the table while Ziva put the finishing touches to the pasta sauce.

Tony had to rely on Ziva: he had no one else. What Ziva got out of it was less clear, and everything Jenny could think of was worrisome.

Ziva lifted the pot from the stove, and - back ramrod straight as ever - walked to the dinner table and placed it on the board Tony had set earlier, between Ducky’s and Tony’s seats.

Tony fell silent. Ziva stood in place. Jenny, silent and curious, set across from Tony and watched the scene, wondering what had she missed.

Wondered, until Ducky shook his head slightly, turned to Ziva - halfway, but still - and said, “That smells delicious, dear,” and Jenny had to re-evaluate everything she thought she understood about the girl.

 

* * *

 

Her first impression of Tony had been _pathetic,_ and nothing that happened after gave Ziva reason to change her mind. Tony was pathetic, Abby stupid, Timothy spineless and Dr. Mallard practically suicidal, according to the way Ziva understood the world. What made Tony somewhat more useful and worthy of attention than the rest of Agent Gibbs’ chosen family (chosen, all of them, not one of them blood) was that Tony always did as his Pa instructed.

Even when the man was gone, with no one knowing where to or what it would take for him to return, even then Tony continued to follow the instructions his Pa had left behind. Ziva understood that. Maybe there was nothing else about Tony that was worth anything, but Tony continued to do what he was supposed to when everyone else in Gibbs’ family had failed.

Everyone but Ziva. She cooked and did the laundry because she needed food and clean clothes. She also did these things for Dr. Mallard and Tony, because that was what Gibbs would want to find when he came home.

One day she glanced from the oven in which she had just placed chicken and potatoes to the living room, where Tony was fighting his way through folding laundry and thought, quite clearly: _I can hurt him._ There where ways of hurting someone that meant nothing, except that you were stronger. Ziva could do with the entire household and disappear, if she so wanted; if she had the time and privacy she could make it slow, such as feeding the cow Abby her own tattoos. Anyone could do that who had the means.

 _She_ could hurt _Tony_ , though. Her, specifically; him, specifically. This was different. This was special.

It so happened that Tony looked up in time to see her smile at the thought that pleased her, small and sharp, and offer his own smile in return, the mindless Labrador-like one that she hadn’t seen in a while.

She had something of hers in the Gibbs-Mallard household, now.

 

* * *

 

Abby knows exactly when she stopped hating _that._

It was her and Tim’s first weekend home when Pa was gone. Abby went down to the basement to try and be with Pa, sit under his boat for a while. When she came downstairs she discovered Ziva there.

Ziva, with her blank expression; Ziva, sitting under the boat; Ziva, hugging her knees; Ziva in Abby’s spot, doing what Abby thought to be doing, and for one speechless moment Abby couldn’t imagine that anything had brought Ziva there but Abby’s own reasons.

Ziva was already getting to her feet, saying, “I will go.”

“Don’t go,” said Abby automatically, reaching to stop the younger girl before she could think better of it.

Ziva stared at her.

“I brought chocolate,” said Abby. “I hope you like it with raisins.”

Ziva was still standing, and still staring at her.

“We can miss him together,” Abby said, tentatively. She could be wrong about this whole thing and that would be terribly embarrassing and also what made Ziva think she had the _right_ -

Ziva sat down. Looked down, too.

“Raisins are fine,” she said.

Abby blinked. “All right,” she said. “Good.” And sat down next to her foster sister.

 

* * *

 

“Your company is going to get slaughtered.”

Tim nearly jumps out of his swivel chair. He cranes his neck around. “Jeez, Ziva,” he says, hoping his irritation would mask his anxiety, “you need to wear a bell or something.”

Her gaze remains as uninterested as ever. No - there’s some life, there, but it isn’t for him. Rather, it’s for his game monitor.

“You are attempting a flanking maneuver,” she says. “However, your opponent’s chosen tactics so far combined with his current choice of location suggest that he had amassed a force that will easily overpower your alpha company before beta even arrives.”

Said that way, it sounds familiar. Tim had lost troops that way before. “Any brilliant ideas?” he asks, still irritated.

“Brilliant, no; better, yes.”

“Well, come over here and grab a seat, already,” he says. He doesn’t realize what he actually said until she complies.

He is not supposed to play MMORPGs this late. She is not supposed to be awake this late. There is an epic head-biting in their future, that much is certain.

It will all be worth it if she gets him to the next level in the game.

 

* * *

 

Abby is in the kitchen when Tony and Ziva come bounding down the stairs. It’s Tony and Ziva, unmistakably: only they can make that much noise. Well-practiced in the antics of her siblings, Abby walks over to see what got them so excited.

“Oh!” she says, almost involuntarily. Ziva turns around, using her big, dark eyes to their maximum effect. “That’s a nice sweatshirt,” Abby continues. “I love this colour on you.” It’s a very orange sweatshirt, bright without being neon. It brings warmth to Ziva’s earth tones.

“Thank you,” she says.

“But if you don’t want to look, like, eight, then you really want to get this colour, in a different cut. I mean, it’s cute and all and I _love_ seeing you in colour, but...”

To her surprise, Ziva laughs and turns around to high-five a grinning Tony.

Abby cocks an eyebrow. “What are you two up to?” she demands.

Tony grabs Ziva’s shoulders. “I’d like you to meet my new wingman,” he tells Abby.

“Oh, no,” Abby said. “ _Tony._ ”

“What?” he says, too innocently. “Better than a puppy.”

Abby gives him a stern look, and then turns a softer one on Ziva. “Don’t let him use you,” she warns.

“He is not using me any more than I’m using him,” Ziva tells her.

“Was that supposed to be reassuring?” Abby demands.

“I do not see the point of reassurance,” Ziva says.

“She’s just messing with you,” Tony tells Abby, and then addresses Ziva: “Quit messing with Abby, Ziva.”

“But she’s so much fun.”

“Yeah, but then it isn’t fun for me, and that won’t be much fun for you, now would it? Now come on,” he lets go of her shoulders and starts towards the garage door. “The hunting grounds are waiting.”

“Tony!” Abby calls after him. “If I hear you use predator-speak one more time...”

But Tony and Ziva are already gone.

Well, Abby reasons as she returns to her Swiss Triple Chocolate cake, at least Tony’s teaching Ziva to enjoy socialization and shopping. That’s something, too.

 


	2. Papercut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gibbs-Mallard family tries to pick up in the aftermath of Tony and Jeanne, but some things may be too broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chronologically, this follows [Rule Number 4, Part 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/212672/chapters/326711). However, the posting order/recommended reading order is inverse.

Dad always talks when they’re cooking. Dad always talks, period, like silence is a hungry wolf that needs to be constantly fed, lest it devour one and all. Abby shifted guiltily where she was carefully stirring the white sauce.

“Abigail?” Dad asked from the cutting board.

Abby flinched again. Dad had been like that, in recent weeks, watching over them all as if any of them would disappear into thin air if he took his eyes off for just a second.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “I don’t like the silence much.”

“Well,” he said, “there is rarely silence in this house.” The words were light, almost, but Abby was not a kid anymore, and she knew what to listen for in her Dad’s voice.

He’ll play this game with her if she’ll want to: let her evade and talk around things instead of them. It’s what Dad does, giving everyone room without leaving anyone on his or her own. Having tried doing that, Abby had vowed to herself to not put that load on him.

She swallowed, steeled herself, and said, in an all too small voice: “There is now. Dad?” she added tentatively as he paused.

As if confessing, he told her: “I don’t like the silence much either.”

“I know,” she replied. “I was thinking that, too.”

“Do you know what I have been thinking?”

There: that lilt in his voice, that was real, brief as it was. “No,” Abby asked, injecting all the curiosity she could muster into her voice. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that it is customary to sing when one’s hands are busy with manual chores, leaving one’s mind free to wander.”

“Oh!” It was a bit of an effort to find her old squeaks, but nothing less would do in reply. “Gilbert and Sullivan?”

“Definitely,” he replied.

 

* * *

Abby and Tim ended up spending most of their time in her room. Being together felt that much safer, with the family vibrating in the aftermath, and Abby was most comfortable in her own space; always had been. Most of the time that was enough. At times, though, the interpersonal currents in the house would become more agitated and stormy, and then Tim and Abby would pack their laptops, go to one of the local coffee shops that offered free wi-fi and stay there until Dad called Abby to come help in the kitchen or Pa called to demand Tim’s involvement in one chore or the other; or, sometimes, until it had gotten that late and no one had called.

The latter were the nights on which Abby and Tim would stay up even later, staving off going to sleep for as long as they could, huddled with their laptops and whichever snack struck Abby’s fancy in the blanket fort they set up in Abby’s room, as if they were ten again and these were Tim’s first months as part of this family.

Some of those times Dad had found them the morning after, having fallen asleep next to each other, but Dad was Dad, and he never said a word.

 

* * *

 

“Tony.”

Tony lifted his head. Tim was standing at the door to his room and, by the looks of him, had been standing there a while.

Tony blinked at him, too exhausted to find words. Another person who wanted to yell at him. Great.

“I just want to say...” Tim hesitated. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said finally. “I’m really glad you’re alive.”

Tony blinked at him again. This time, though, it was a sign of confusion.

Tim didn’t seem to get that. “So I, um... I’ll be in my room,” he said, shifting in place. “I suppose you’ll be as well. Here, I mean. I just...”

“Yeah.” Tony felt as surprised as Tim seemed to be, that he’d found his voice. Or he would’ve felt that way, if he wasn’t so goddamned exhausted. “Okay,” he added, mostly to see if his voice would sound less wrecked on the second try.

It didn’t.

 

* * *

 

“Why am I under your bed, again?” Tony asked.

“Because,” came Ziva’s voice from above him, “I am protecting you from the world.”

Tony considered that for a moment. “Okay,” he acknowledged. “That makes sense.”

The bed creaked slightly, sheets rustling, as Ziva shifted. Her face showed up, upside-down over the edge of the bed. “Are you not comfortable?” she inquired.

“Actually?” Tony asked, a little ruefully, taking in the snacks, blanket, mp3 player and old laptop whose absence Tim would eventually notice. “I’m a little disturbed by how comfortable it is here.”

 

* * *

 

Ziva had woke up on Sunday morning feeling as if she had eaten too much, and the feeling got lodged behind her chest. She did not succeed in matching a name to that feeling until the morning of the next day, still seated to the kitchen table, looking between her cereal and the front door through which Agent Gibbs had just left.

The name of that feeling, like bruises where there shouldn’t be any, was disappointment.

Living in this house, with this family, had never been easy. _Kate_ still lived in every room in this house, whether those people perceived that or not, whether they acknowledged it or not. Ziva understood that: Kate had not left them of her volition or theirs, and they clung to what they had. The understanding did little - if at all - for her resentment. She had not been asked, either.

The year before, there had not been much. A searching gaze over breakfast; a light, warm hand on her shoulder a few times during the day; and a long night in the basement, sanding at that boat. It had not been much but it had, it seemed, been enough. She had not felt this way a year before.

She knew this year would be different. Too many things have happened in the past two weeks. Too many things that _mattered,_ unlike this. This was hers alone, and she knew what that would mean. She knew she may not be welcome in the basement at this time; she knew it was a work day, and Agent Gibbs would leave early. She had gotten up early specifically for that reason: breakfast may be all they could have this year.

A look would have been enough. A shrug, even. Sitting in the kitchen, alone, between Gibbs’ leaving and Ducky’s waking, Ziva knew that she had not expected _nothing._ She had expected something, had for days, even though she understood, even though she should have known better. That was why she hurt, physically, like she never had before: like a blow to her sternum that got past her guard, like she had been sparring for hours and all her muscles were trembling with the effort, like the sun was in her eyes.

On the morning of the first day of the third year since she had killed her brother, Ziva sat alone.

 

* * *

“Um, sir?”

Jethro didn’t look up from his desk, though he knew Lee was standing in front of it, a file in her hands as she shifted nervously from foot to foot. She tried clearing her throat, but it was laughably quiet, so Jethro continued to ignore her. Finally, after what he assumed was Pacci or Yates prompting her, Lee tried again.

“Boss?”

He looked up at her, and her relief was evident. “What’ve you got for me?”

“I got the, um, the financial records that you asked me for,” Lee said. Jethro fixed her with his best _So what?_ look, and she wilted. He pushed down the small voice in the back of his mind that said _Jen wouldn’t have flinched_.

Director Vance had put Jenny on medical leave shortly after the rather explosive confrontation Jethro’d had with him. His team had gone to visit her in the hospital, but Jethro had declined to join them; sick or not, _dying_ or not, she had broken Rule Number One, and betrayed his trust. Worse than that, she’d involved Jethro’s _son_.

He pushed those thoughts down. It wouldn’t do to take out his anger on Lee. No matter how many hours he spent sanding the boat in his basement or talking to Ducky or burying himself in work, he hadn’t managed to figure out _why_ Tony had told that particular lie, why he’d let Jen use him that way; and until he knew, the anger would continue to burn hot and bright.

He forced his attention back to his newest agent and the case at hand. “Find anything?”

 

* * *

 

Donald stood outside the doorway of the hospital room, not quite prepared yet to enter. Like most hospitals, there wasn’t much to be heard; the muffled sounds of televisions, the constant beeping of monitoring equipment, and the hushed conversations were the only indications that there was life here. The near-silence wasn’t unfamiliar to him; he worked in a hospital, after all, though it was usually much quieter down in the secluded region of the morgue.

Today was about the living, though. Donald steeled his nerves and straightened his tie, shifting the vase of flowers to one hand as he entered the room. The television was turned off, and there was only one patient there, her eyes closed and her breathing the even rhythm of sleep. He took a long moment to study her. She had looked healthy the last he’d seen her, a little over a month before. Her appearance had aged well over a decade since. Her skin was the mottled grey of sickness; it had lost its elasticity, hanging in loose, old-looking folds over her bones. She’d always been slim, but this was different: illness had eaten away at her flesh, leaving little to give shape between her skin and her bones. He could see where the fungi and bacterial infections - side effects of the treatment - held on in spite of the antibiotics that had to be added to her regiment. Her hair was gone, the skin of her scalp thinner and as mottled as the rest of her.

He had seen corpses that had looked better than this. Then again, corpses could appear deceptively healthy. Too often he dealt with sudden, tragic deaths.

Prolonged illness was so much more different, and he wasn’t quite prepared for the reality of it. “Oh, my poor dear,” he said softly, placing the flowers on the side table. He pulled the single chair closer to her bed, as quietly as possible. Thankfully, she didn’t wake up, and Donald settled in to keep her company, at least for a little while.

Regardless of what had happened, no one deserved to go through this alone.

 

* * *

 

 _Thump, thump, thump._ Tony paused, lining up his shot, then _swish_ , through the net, and he chased after the ball, picking it up to start dribbling again. He should have been asleep, but his mind was racing and it felt good to be outside and moving around. Better than in his dark bedroom, where it felt like the walls were trying to close in on him.

“Tony,” said his Dad’s voice behind him. Tony didn’t turn, dribbling the ball a few more times before taking another shot. This one bounced off the rim; he watched it roll away instead of chasing it.

“Do you know what time it is?” Dad continued.

He shrugged, still not turning to face him. “Late.” He didn’t feel like coming up with a clever retort.

“Tony,” Dad sighed. “It’s two in the morning.” Tony heard Dad’s feet shuffling as he walked up to Tony and put a hand on his shoulder. “How about some tea?”

Tony half-turned, catching sight of the small basement window at the back of the house; still lit, which meant Pa was still down there. _No wonder Dad is awake._ “Yeah, sure.”

Dad nodded, his expression relaxing into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and clapped Tony’s shoulder. “Good. Come inside and I’ll make us both a cuppa.”

He couldn’t help but quirk a small smile as he followed Dad inside. Despite having lived in America for so long, Dad still held on to his Britishisms rather resolutely, and it never failed to amuse Tony and his siblings. “As long as it’s not that smelly herbal crap Abby picked up.”

“Oh, well,” Dad sighed as he shuffled down the hall, towards the kitchen. “I was fancying myself a cup of chamomile. I suppose lemon balm will have to do.”

Despite Dad’s offer to make the tea, Tony filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove, letting Dad fetch the mugs and the tea leaves. He sat at the small kitchen table, facing away from the basement doorway.

“You know,” Dad remarked as he measured loose-leaf into the mugs, “this reminds me of that one time...”

Instead of carrying on to whatever anecdote he had just recalled, Dad’s voice died off. He paused in the measuring of the leaves. Tony could just barely see that his hands were not quite steady.

Tony looked at him in concern. “What time was that?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

It was a few seconds before Dad said, voice no more steady than his hands: “It was in Afghanistan.”

Tony blinked. He knew his parents had Done Things before they had all become a family, but usually no one talked about them. Afghanistan was one of those things that recently surfaced, but Tony had figured it would be treated the same way Pa’s first family was - selectively ignored. “Oh. Do you... want to talk about it?”

Dad poured the leaves into one mug. “I...” The one syllable seemed to carry a great weight. He measured another serving. “Thank you, Tony,” he continued, a little more steadily, pouring the leaves into the other mug, “but it seems I have done all the talking about this that my heart can take, for a while.”

The kettle hissed. Dad removed it from the stove and began pouring, but then had to place it down suddenly as his hands shook. He only barely did not pour the scalding water over his own hands.

Tony was across the kitchen in three long steps, taking one of Dad’s hands in his own and giving it a squeeze. Tony rarely reached out to hold someone who was not Abby (or, more and more rarely, Ziva), but he could tell this was what his Dad needed right now. He still did not expect Dad to pull him into a tight hug.

He also didn’t expect Dad to whisper, “He was not much younger than you.”

Tony didn’t know what to say in response to that, so instead, he hugged his Dad tighter. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m....sorry.” It wasn’t what he meant to say, but it was the best he could manage in that moment.

Dad’s gulping inhale, like Tony’s, sounded entirely too much like a sob, and if Tony’s eyes were stinging, it certainly wasn’t from tears.

 


	3. Spirals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parallels the Micahel Rivkin arc, up to and including episode 7.01, _Truth and Consequence_.
> 
>  **Content advisory:** graphic depictions of violence, psychological violence, consensual sexual situation involving a teenager, minor character death (canon and other)

_December 2008_

 

The first Christmas of Tony being Jethro’s and Ducky’s son, the then eleven-year-old and his his brand-new six-year-old sister snuck a box of Christmas records and a dusty old record player down from the attic. It was one of the rare occurrences of Tony dragging Abby into something, other than the other way around. The records and the record player had both been Shannon’s, but the children’s twin smiles of delight had soothed Jethro’s heartache enough that he could stand to see the relics of that lost life.

It has since become a Christmas tradition of Tony and Abby’s. This year, though, the cheery strains of _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_ just weren’t enough to cover the uncomfortable silences filling the Gibbs-Mallard house. Four months after, Jethro and his eldest could still only barely maintain conversation; Ducky and Abby both showed the strain of running interference and maintaining the peace; and Tim was visibly uncomfortable. Ziva was somewhat more removed than she had been before August, but that could be simply due to her being sixteen.

It had been a good idea to invite Mike and his family, though. Amirah provided a distraction, if nothing else, and Abby was certainly delighted with the toddler. Jethro had not missed the way Leyla’s eyes had scanned the room, picking up on the tension, but she said nothing, opting to sit and play with Abby and her own daughter instead. Mike, on the other hand, was clearly waiting for an opportunity to corner Jethro.

“This place is about as cheerful as a funeral parlor,” Mike said, following Jethro into the garage, shutting the door behind him. “What the hell is going on, Probie?”

Jethro grabbed two beers from the spare fridge, handing one over to Mike to give himself a moment to collect his thoughts. “Ah, hell, I don’t even know any more,” he finally said, leaning against the car.

“I’d ask if you wanted to talk about it, but you’re about as talkative as a brick wall, and I ain’t sure I want to hear about whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time,” Mike replied. Jethro snorted softly.

“Thanks, Mike, I knew I could always count on you,” he said dryly.

Mike gave him a long look before asking: “You still got your pants in a twist about that lady friend of yours?”

Jethro sighed. Most of his anger at Jenny was gone, but the betrayal still burned. “She was my _partner_ ; and she went behind my back, used my _son_...”

Mike cut him off. “Best I can tell, Tony made that choice for himself,” he said. Jethro glared at him, but Mike just shrugged. “He ain’t a kid any more, Jethro. He made a stupid decision. But hell, how many stupid decisions did _you_ make at his age?”

“That’s not the point, damn it. Jen should have known better.”

“Probably. But was this really that unexpected from her?” Mike asked. “I know you trusted her, Probie, but you know my opinion on women like that.”

“Women like _what_ , Mike?” Jethro snapped.

Mike looked amused, more than anything. “She’s a woman in a man’s world, and from what you’ve said, she certainly acts like it. Comes from money, doesn’t she? I hate that sort,” he continued. “Always think they deserve to get whatever they want.”

Jethro warred with his emotions. On the one hand, instinct was still to defend Jenny; they’d been partners for years, and he knew she was a damn fine agent. He still couldn’t bring himself to forgive her, though, and defending her against Mike Franks felt too much like that.

“Hell, Mike,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t even know.”

 

* * *

 

 _January 2009_

 

There was a white board hanging in the kitchen of the Gibbs-Mallard house. It was a rather big board, wide enough to comfortably fit six columns, each titled with a family member’s name. Rule Number Three said _Never be unreachable_ , but times at which one could not answer their phone still happened. The board was meant for those occasions: you wrote down where you were supposed to be, when and for how long, so that everybody else would know to freak out when it was time, and not before. Classes were the most common occurrence, though sometimes Dad was up to his elbows in a dead person’s chest or Pa was out in the field. Lately, though, the word _Practice_ was also often scribbled across the board on the rightmost column.

Ziva’s column.

Ziva ran. Ziva had always been running. Sometimes she would get up at insane hours in the morning to punch in her seven miles before breakfast. She was a good runner, Ziva. It got her a spot on her school’s cross-country team, which was an all-around good thing: Ziva wasn’t nearly the still, silent kid she had been nearly two and a half years before, but she was still something of a recluse. Anything that got her out of the house and forced her to interact with other people, especially her peers, was a good thing.

Should have been a good thing.

Tony had a really bad feeling about it. He knew, intellectually, that he should ignore that feeling. He was no Dad, but he’d grown up around law enforcement and he knew enough about the way the human mind worked to understand that one always feared the blow that’d already been dealt. He had many memories of Pa being shaken if Abby had so much as scraped her knee, back when they were little; the wife and daughter Pa had only told them about because he hadn’t known who they were explained that. Tony screwed the pooch and Kate had died, and now Ziva’s running practices made his heart rate skyrocket and his hands sweat.

He thought that Ziva was being more distant, more prone to snapping. He thought she seemed more distracted with her school work. He also knew he had no reason to trust his own mind on the matter. Not with what had happened to Kate; not with Pa’s silent, resentful anger over what had happened with Jeanne. This was the entire reason Tony was doing an MA, anyhow: growing up in a LEO family, he knew better than to apply for any law enforcement agency with the state his head was in.

Tony knew all that. It still did not make the feeling go away. That was why he’d taken the car and drove to Ziva’s school, where he sweet-talked his way onto the grounds and then stood at a safe distance and watched the kids running in the athletics field until he was satisfied that Ziva was among them, and then some.

That had been the week before. The feeling still ate at him.

Tony turned abruptly and grabbed the keys from the bowl on the way to the garage door. Ziva was smart and, moreover, Ziva was _trained._ She’d pulled off living on her own when she was thirteen, until Pa went to her father’s house on a case and found her there by herself, her father deployed half across the world and her mother long divorced. Ziva knew how to lie and how to mislead. That Tony had witnessed one practice said nothing except that Ziva knew the best lies had some truth in them.

Tony would just have to go to every single practice, and hope like hell that his panic would abate before Ziva would catch him at it. That was what Tony told himself during the drive to the school, in between berating himself on his own stupidity, lack of self control and general patheticness. He continued to berate himself as he walked down the empty school halls and made his way out the back, up until he caught sight of the athletics field. Then he stopped dead in his tracks and stared for a few seconds before turning around and all but sprinting on the way back to the car.

The athletics field was empty.

 

* * *

 

 _February 2009_

 

“No,” Ziva said flatly. “Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, babe, I made the reservations and everything,” Michael replied.

The lack of a few inches has never stopped Ziva from staring an idiot man down, and Michael was no exception. Facing each other in the hallway of his apartment, she fixed him with one of her better glares.

He scowled at her. “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

Ziva narrowed her eyes, considered him for a split second, and made her call. Michael was Michael and, occasionally, that meant being an idiot. Ziva, however, was Ziva, and a split-second later she slammed him face-first against the wall and bent his right arm behind his back.

“Say that again,” she told him, “and I will break you arm.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he swore, but it didn’t take him long to use his advantage of size, pushing off against the wall to slam her against the opposite wall before spinning around and trapping her there with his body, facing each other. “Crazy bitch,” he said, the husky quality of his voice offsetting the annoyance.

“Now what did I tell you about that?” she replied. Her voice had dropped, too, but it was still more even than his.

He groped one of her tits, thumb running rough circles against a nipple that was suddenly quite visible through the layers of fabric. “This the arm you’re gonna break?” he asked.

“Maybe it’s not your arm I want to break,” she replied.

She had to speak around hitched breathing; Michael’s face stretched in a wide, lazy grin. “Feisty,” he said, appreciative. “Fine,” he continued, making the word into a taunt. “If you won’t let me take you out to a fancy dinner, then I suppose I don’t have to give you your present, either.”

“As you want to take me out to a _fancy dinner,_ I’m not that concerned about the potential loss,” she retorted.

He leaned closer to her, which forced him to slide his hand to her waist. “And if I told you it was a knife?” he breathed into her ear, deliberately seductive.

“How good a knife?” she breathed against his neck, catching his pulse with her teeth. Her hand was on his where his fingers explored the inch of skin between jeans and t-shirt.

“I thought you didn’t care,” he replied, trying to keep the moan out of his voice.

“And I thought you weren’t a complete retard,” she replied between a bite and a lick. “Don’t prove me wrong.”

He moved his hand sideways, fumbling for her belt buckle and working it open. “Maybe we should just skip dinner and go straight to dessert.”

“Knife first,” she whispered. Her eyes were half-closed, head leaning back against the wall.

He chuckled, low and throaty. “Such a wildcat.” He pushed off the wall, leaving her in the hallway. He returned a minute later with what looked like a long, flat jewelry box with a partially flattened ribbon stuck to the top of it.

Ziva raised her eyebrows at him, but held out her hand nonetheless. He handed the box over to her, leaning against the wall across from her to watch.

Ziva cracked open the box. A slow, satisfied smile broke across her face as she deftly lifted out the long ball chain with the six-inch blade in its black sheath hanging from it. She shut the box with her one hand and slid the chain over her head, tucking the knife under her shirt and fitting it between her breasts.

Then she looked up at Michael, and her smile took on a different shade of emotion, teeth glinting in the half-lit hallway. “One more thing for you to take off,” she said. She closed the short distance between them, cupping the back of his head with both her hands. “I’ll take that dessert now,” she added, and claimed a kiss.

 

* * *

 

 _March 2009_

 

Tony leaned against the car, waiting for Ziva to come out of the school after practice. A few other girls had already walked out, whispering and sending none-too-subtle looks in his direction. He flashed them a wide grin, hearing them burst into giggles. The girls were probably smart enough to know they didn’t stand a chance with him, and Tony really had no particular interest in teenage girls, but giving them something to gossip about didn’t hurt anyone. In fact, Ziva had encouraged him to keep it up, because it gave her the advantage of having the cool, older, foster brother.

Ziva’s brisk gait was unmistakable in the stream of school kids. Wearing track pants and a sweatshirt, still-wet hair tucked up under a hat, it seemed to Tony that she looked improbably young. He stood up straighter and waved, so she couldn’t pretend to have not seen him. If she was going to do so, he couldn’t tell: she walked straight to him.

“Hey, Puma,” he greeted her, trying to keep his voice even so she wouldn’t be suspicious. “I was in the area, figured you might want a ride home.”

“As I spent the last two hours running,” she said dryly as she pulled the passenger’s door open.

“Hasn’t stopped you before,” he replied, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Not that you ever needed a reason,” she returned his serve.

He grinned, though it felt tight and forced. She could probably tell, even if it looked like she was focusing out the windshield and not towards him. He put the car into motion before she could decide to try and avoid this conversation. Five minutes of silence later, he finally worked up the nerve to _start_ it.

“So who’s the guy you’ve been seeing?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light and teasing, the way he’d talk if this was Abby, who would only _threaten_ to hurt him, and not actually follow through with a hard punch to the arm.

“Who says I’m seeing anyone?” she asked. He spared a glance in her direction before turning his attention back to the road.

“I’m not blind, you know, and I only pretend to be stupid,” he replied.

“Apparently I am, because I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

“You know, I’m beginning to think maybe you are,” he snapped back. “I know you’ve been lying about having practice to meet up with him. You’d have been better off skipping actual practices, you know.”

Her diction became better defined, the way it always did when her temper flared. “I have never, and never will, neglect a commitment.”

He opened his mouth to say _But you’re perfectly okay with lying to your family_ before he caught himself, teeth grinding together as he snapped his mouth shut again. Tony was the last person who was allowed to use _that_ particular argument. He exhaled slowly through his nose, focusing on the road in front of him until he could relax his tight grip on the steering wheel. “So you’re not denying that you made up practices as an excuse to go out with some boy.” His voice was a lot steadier than he felt it should be.

“What makes you think I made up practices?” she demanded.

“I came by to pick you up one day when you had _practice_ written on the family schedule.”

Her tone became more measured, almost accusing. “Did you _follow_ me, Tony? You spying on me, now?”

“It’s hard to spy on you when you’re not where you claim to be,” he shot back.

“I’ll remember that the next time you try to keep your affairs your business,” she said icily.

His hands jerked the wheel reflexively. He swore, bringing the car back under control. _Real smart, Tony, having this conversation while driving,_ he berated himself. He swallowed and pushed the memory of Jeanne down as far as he could. “You’re sixteen, Ziva. There’s a hell of a difference between me having a private relationship and you having one.”

Her voice went back to the sharpness of anger. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“You know what? This isn’t about me,” Tony said. “This is about you sneaking around and coming home with bruises that most certainly aren’t from _running_.”

She exhaled once, sharply.

He tried to soften his tone. “I’m worried about you, kitten. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

“I can take care of myself,” she snapped. “Just because you think you’re so smart doesn’t mean you know anything.”

“You don’t _have_ to take care of yourself. That’s what family is for,” Tony said.

“You know what, you’re actually right,” she said. Her voice was all wrong. “And the next time you have the freakin’ balls to spy on me, that’s what I’ll do.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked. He sounded afraid, and he felt that way: the wrongness of her last statement made it feel like he’d just swallowed a bucket of ice water, his stomach twisting painfully.

She didn’t answer.

“Well?” he prompted her in his best Pa Voice.

“It means,” she said, in a voice he had not heard in nearly two years, since before Pa nearly dying and the three months of hell, “that my father is back stateside, and there is no reason for my continued stay with you.”

This time, he was in the opposite lane before his brain unstuck enough to process the car coming in front of him and the screech of the horn. He pulled at the wheel with suddenly slippery, shaking hands, only barely making it back to the right lane without running into two other cars.

 _No,_ he thought, struggling to split his attention between the road and his iron-blocked lungs. _No._

In the passenger seat, Ziva crossed her arms on her chest, smile triumphant.

 

* * *

 

Lying on her back in her bed at night, staring at the dark ceiling, Ziva thought, _I could go back._

Two and a half years before, Ziva had been sitting at the kitchen island in her father’s quiet house; it was always quiet, there. There was no one to disturb her but the maid, and she knew to only come when Ziva was at school.

She had been doing her homework while making dinner when the doorbell rung and she opened the door, unknowingly letting Agent Gibbs into her life. _Who’re you? Where’s your father? Are you here all by yourself? Pack your bags; I’m not leaving you here._

An order, simple and straightforward. He had not given her a choice. She’d known who he was, of course, as soon as he’d said his name. She’d known into whose house she had been invited. She’d opened the door to her brother that night, the night that in a moment of rage she’d put a bullet in his head with their father’s gun.

It had been like a contract, like a promise: sitting at Gibbs’ kitchen table that night, she knew that he would not let her go, not while he had a choice about it.

Her father was back stateside. She had a choice, now.

She’d gotten used to this house, this family. She’d gotten used to there always being someone for her to play with, the price of their constant attention more than acceptable. She was comfortable there, and had been for a while. It had seemed to her to be easier to withstand her father’s wheedling - leverage and guilt wrapped up in the rhetoric of love - for however long it would take for him to be shipped back out again, then to do whatever it would take for Gibbs and his family to let go of her.

All the while, there was Michael.

He had been Ari’s, Michael, her brother’s right hand. She hadn’t spoken with him in years, afraid to face him or any of Ari’s people. The last summer drove her back out to the old neighbourhood, seeking people who - like her - would remember Ari fondly, not contemptuously. She’d found Michael quickly enough.

He’d grown; so had she. It was easy.

Then there was Tony: Tony and his fears, Tony and his attachments, Tony and his claims of _family._ Ziva had wanted to laugh in his face when he’d said that, would’ve leaned across and pushed the wheel and the car into the opposite lane if it would not have killed her as well.

She’d said what she said to upset him, to see that look on his face and know she’d put it there, to know that he would not dare to question her again.

Lying in bed at night, staring at the dark ceiling, Ziva thought that perhaps she now owed Tony a most ironic debt.

 

* * *

 

 _April 2009_

 

Tony had made a lot of stupid mistakes in his life. The list was rather impressive, especially considering that he was only 23, and somehow he’d managed to make most of them in the last three years or so. _If there was an award for biggest fuck up, I’d win it, no sweat_.

He hadn’t decided yet if following Ziva was a mistake or not. If Tony was wrong and his worries were unfounded, she’d probably castrate him. But he wasn’t willing to take the risk that he was overreacting. Sneaking around with a boy had cost Kate her life; sneaking around with a girl had nearly cost Tony his family. He wasn’t going to let Ziva lose either.

So he’d followed her, skipping his own afternoon class so she wouldn’t suspect anything. She was good, but he was better, if only by virtue of having more years of experience than she did. And maybe she was underestimating him; most people did.

He’d switched cars with a college buddy for the afternoon, because Ziva knew what his car looked like, and laid in wait. Following a motorcycle with a car was no fun, and Tony was no Pa, but he managed. Ziva’s route led away from her school, and Tony’s worry rose as the condition of the neighbourhoods they passed through became steadily worse. The neighbourhood in which she’d finally parked Abby’s bike and took off her helmet was as bad as bad got.

 _Small wonder she didn’t want anyone to know. How’d she ever meet this guy, anyway?_

The apartment building she entered was dilapidated, dirty, trash thrown everywhere. It was also covered in graffiti, a red gang tag prominently displayed, a territory marker that Tony recognized all too easily. So easily, in fact, that he stared at it for long seconds, wishing himself to be wrong.

Ari’s gang.

He felt like someone - Ziva, maybe - had just punched him in the stomach. Bile rose up into his mouth, as his hands clenched on the wheel convulsively. He swallowed down the bitterness, breathing through the miasma of emotions, the most prominent of which were panic and betrayal.

Moments later Ziva stepped back outside, now accompanied by a dark-haired man about Tony’s age. Tony would have gotten out of the car and beat the crap out of the banger if three others hadn’t just joined the couple. Tony wasn’t angry or stupid enough to take on those kinds of odds.

He’d just have to come back later.

 

* * *

 

There was a car parked outside Michael’s building that Ziva had seen there in the afternoon, too. Ziva frowned at it: it was none of the regulars, and it did not look like it belonged. She glanced around and then walked closer to inspect it. The last few steps she took at nearly a run: there was a sticker on the front windshield, a parking permit, and one that Ziva knew well.

Georgetown University.

 _Tony._

She sprinted upstairs. The sounds of the fight reached her as she ran, the short sequence of gunfire blasting out through the thin walls even as she finally reached the landing. Ziva slammed into Michael’s door with all of her weight and momentum, forcing it open, the knife Michael had given her on Valentine’s Day already in hand. He was the first thing she saw, lying on the floor with the entire front of his shirt soaked in blood. Next to him was Tony, face splattered with blood, pushing himself up on his elbows.

She dropped the knife, letting the unsheathed metal dangle outside her shirt, and ran to Michael. She knelt by him, her hands automatically finding the entrance wounds and pressing down with what force she had.

Too late. She knew that as soon she forced herself to truly look at his injuries. One of the bullets had gone through his heart.

She turned around and stood up in one smooth movement, removing the knife’s chain from around her neck and wrapping it around her wrist with a practiced swing. Her knees remained unlocked, feet splayed, automatically bracing for an attack that never came.

Tony was still sitting on the floor, blinking at her stupidly. “Ziva,” he said, voice cracking on the two syllables.

She backhanded him. She swung from the waist, putting everything she had into it, and he slammed into the floor. Even in her rage she saw his left arm dangling oddly, had seen the way he’d cradled that arm to his body a split-second before, and she closed her free hand on his forearm and heard him very nearly scream, his head rolling back to hit the floor again and conveniently exposing his throat.

She put her knife to it. Coming from his left she crouched down, leaning down with her weight on her right knee, digging into where his thigh connected to his hip, right on the artery, noting every single whimper of pain that punctuated his breath. He was breathing heavily, shakily, tears streaking down his cheeks. He put up as much struggle as a rag doll.

“Ziva,” he tried again, through tightly gritted teeth.

“I should kill you right now,” she spat, pressing the flat of he blade hard against his windpipe, not enough to choke him but enough to add even more pain. “Before you kill anyone else.”

He blinked, face contorting in an expression she did not care to name. His eyes were hazy with pain and very bright as he returned her gaze. “Then do it,” he rasped, tone somewhere between an order and a challenge.

She clenched her left hand, feeling the broken bone shift under her grasp as he cried out again. “Coward,” she said. “You’re pathetic. I should put you out of your misery, should I? Now that you’re done killing everyone I love. Huh?” She pressed again, leaning forward and putting more weight against his throat, too. “Answer me!”

Now he struggled, the blind animal-writhing of a brain deprived of oxygen. Ziva stayed put, feeling the tension of his muscles against hers, letting go just before he’d lose consciousness and then watched him gasp for air like a fish out of water for several long moments.

“I’m sorry. It’s the only thing I’m good at,” he croaked.

“What?” she snapped. “Useless apologies? Or just being useless?”

“Getting the people that others love killed.”

Her breath came out in a loud exhale before she could stop it. “And here I thought that you didn’t know. Are you happy, Tony? Is your revenge complete, now?”

“Revenge?” he asked, trying for confusion.

She repositioned the blade so that with one flick she could drive the tip through his artery. “Do not lie to me,” she said, in a voice that belonged where they were.

His body went lax again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Do not lie to me!” she shouted. She shouldn’t have leaned in; her knife nearly penetrated the skin, and there was no room for errors there. “And you call yourself my brother? Now you’ll say again you don’t know who my brother was!”

“Brother?” he asked, apparently still under the delusion that he could lie to her. “You mean _Rivkin_?”

“You killed him, you call him by his name,” she spat.

The tip of the knife nicked his skin as he swallowed. “Michael was your brother?”

“Ari!” she screamed at him, the tears she’d never cried before pouring down her cheeks, hot like blood fresh out of a wound. “Ari was my brother!”

He swallowed again. “I didn’t know.”

She laughed. It was bitter and short even to her own ears. Fitting: like everything else that had ever mattered. She wiped her cheek with the back of her right hand and stood over him.

“Get up,” she said.

He struggled to his feet, left arm clutched against his chest, a small smear of blood on his neck and a bruise already forming. He did not meet her eyes.

“Get out of these clothes,” she said shortly. “ _Now,_ ” she snapped when he didn’t move.

He responded to her sharp command, fumbling one-handed with his belt and the button on his jeans before getting them down his hips. It took him a longer moment to get the bloodstained t-shirt over his head without jarring his arm.

Ziva waited until he was in nothing but his boxers before she spoke again. “Stay,” she ordered. “I don’t need your DNA or prints over any more of this place.” She went to the kitchen, washed her hands thoroughly and returned with a large garbage bag, into which she packed his bloodstained clothes to dispose of later. She left the bag there and went back to the kitchen, returning after a minute with a paper towel she’d wet in the sink. She dabbed it at Tony’s face, removing the splatter from when he’d killed Michael. It took several towels to get the blood off his hands and forearms. She tied the garbage bag closed, left it by the door and then went to the bedroom to find something not-bloodstained for Tony to wear. Preferably something that had just been laundered and had as little of Michael’s own DNA on it as possible. She ordered Tony to dress and left him there, busying herself with washing the blood off the soles of his sneakers.

The apartment would need staging. It would look as if someone had cleaned it up, there was nothing that could be done about that, but Ziva could still make it so the tracks would not point in her direction. She ended up lacing Tony’s shoes. The idiot had nearly sat in the blood trying to do so himself.

That was when it occurred to her that she’d have to drive him to the ER. She sighed.

At least she’d be going home when this night was over.

 

* * *

 

Abby outstripped Tim at a run from the parking garage where they had left the car, heading for the entrance of the hospital. She was still privately amazed that they had survived the one-hour drive, with the way her hands had been shaking on the wheel the entire time. Tim had had to up his meds after Dad had called to tell them that Tony was in the hospital and Ziva was missing, and was nowhere near fit to drive.

But they’d made it, and nothing was going to stop Abby from seeing her older brother; Dad said Tony was okay, physically, but she needed to see for herself. Tim would catch up soon enough, and if he didn’t, Dad would certainly go looking for him while Abby kept an eye on Tony.

Once she found him.

Dad had texted her the room number Tony had been assigned, but hospitals were notoriously confusing, and it took her far too long to find an elevator that would take her to the proper floor, and then several moments longer of interrogating a hapless nurse before she was pointed in the correct direction. Still, it was Dad’s quiet prattling that finally told her where she was going.

She stopped in the doorway, taking in the scene. Dad spoke on, but Abby’s mind had room for nothing but Tony. He was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling with an empty expression that tied her stomach up in knots. That was to say nothing of the fresh, vivid bruises on his face and down his neck, where a gauze pad had been taped to seal a wound. His left arm in its clean plaster cast rested on top of the blanket. Dad held his right in both his hands.

She couldn’t stop a small sob from escaping.

Dad stood up and opened his arms to her, and she buried her face against his shoulder. A moment later she tilted her face, risking a glance towards Tony. She’d hoped he would be smiling at her, that silly old smile that never failed to reassure her, but he was still staring up at the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

When his ground line rang at nine in the morning on a Sunday, Fornell’s first thought was not to cut the line. Typically, work calls came in on his cell, not to his house number. There was no reason to suspect the call.

Wearing the ridiculous Strawberry Shortcake apron he only owned - let alone wore - because it made his baby girl happy, Fornell walked over the hallway and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

He was greeted by a frantic woman’s voice which, seconds later, he identified as belonging to Abby Gibbs-Mallard.

A very panicky Abby Gibbs-Mallard. “Uncle Tobias? It’s Abby, you need to come over right away, there’s an emergency! Dad made Pa sleep in the basement, and they’re not talking to each other, and I don’t know what to do, and there’s no one else to call.”

Typical Abby, really. “Abby,” he said very carefully, “you are going to have to repeat that for me. At a human-legible speed, please.”

He could hear her take a deep breath across the line before she continued. “Dad and Pa had a fight and Dad made him sleep in the basement,” she repeated, much more slowly this time.

“Are you sure your Pa didn’t just forget to go to bed?” he asked. It was remarkably hard to pick a fight with Ducky Mallard. Gibbs was entirely capable of that, and had proven so more than once, but as far as Fornell knew, Ducky had never been that angry with him before, regardless of what his pigheaded husband had done. Fornell was inclined to believe that Abby, in typical Abby-fashion, was overreacting to a perfectly normal situation.

“Dad _yelled_ at him, Uncle Tobias! And now they’re not talking!” she said, sounding close to tears.

Fornell turned around to glance into the kitchen, where Emily was sitting in her chair and still occupied with her colouring book, and then turned his attention back to the phone. “What did your Pa do that Dad yelled at him?” he asked, very carefully.

“He hasn’t even talked to Tony since the hospital and, well, that was a complete disaster, I don’t know how he could...”

“Abby,” he cut her off, suddenly standing straighter. _Fucking Gibbs-Mallards at the ass-crack of dawn on a Sunday morning._ “What hospital? What _happened?_ ”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the phone that must have been Abby realizing he had no idea what was going on. “Tony was in a fight on Wednesday, though he said he fell down some stairs, and he broke his arm, and his _throat_ is cut, and Ziva went back to her father’s house and she isn’t talking to anyone, and Pa has been spending all his time trying to get her to come home and totally ignoring Tony, and Dad...”

She was picking up speed again, so he cut her off. Again. At least now he knew how Jethro had managed to achieve this all-time low of a personal record. “And you say your Dad and you Pa aren’t talking?” he asked, just to earn a few more seconds while he put the final pieces together. Gibbs and his boy had a convoluted relationship, at times, and things had been strained between them since August; and for all of Ducky’s forgiving nature, he had his red lines too - and if Tony had been injured, and if Ducky’s husband seemed to not care...

“Yes,” Abby said, impatiently. “Please, Uncle Tobias, you have to come, right now.”

He glanced again in the direction of the kitchen, and made a command decision. “I’m coming, but I promised Emily a trip to the park today.”

Abby was not too hysterical to get the hint. “I’ll go with her, Uncle Tobias. Just please hurry.”

He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and told her, “We’ll be right over.”

 

* * *

 

The house was silent. The house was always silent. It stuck to her skin, absorbing into it like lotion, soothing the burn of so many people with their incessant demands. Ziva had missed this silence. She had pined for it for years, to have back the ability to make her choices for herself.

This was the night for thinking about such things.

She had not cleared the house of hametz. She had not brought out the special set of dishes that had been collecting dust since a time immemorial, since before her mother had left them. She had not set the table. She did have the battered old booklet out, though, laid out on the table next to her mashed potatoes and the glass of grape juice.

No wine for her this year. She well remembered what the drink had cost Michael.

It was Seder Night. It was also the night on which Michael’s Shiv’aa was to end: the night on which she was supposed to rise from her grief, had either he or she cared for such things. Bitter laughter bubbled in the hollow his absence had left in her chest, carved right underneath where his knife hung against her skin.

Once upon a time there had been a Seder in this house. Her mother’s old plates testified to that. Once upon a time her father would take her and they would go to the rabbi’s house, where the words of the battered old booklet were read out loud, and Ziva had been allowed to sip from the four glasses of wine and had always been the one to find the hidden piece of the ritual matza. Then she had outgrown such childish things, and her father wisely chose to treat this night as any other night, as he had also done that year.

It had not been so in the Gibbs-Mallard house. Agent Gibbs cared for her supposed god as much as he cared for his - that, is, none at all - but Doctor Mallard was soft-headed in the strangest of ways, sometimes. There had been matzos in the house during the week of Passover on both years, though he had not tried to hold a Seder the second year; he had on the first, and she had gone out to the woods and did not return until Agent Gibbs had tracked her down.

There had been a chocolate muffin by her pillow the morning after.

Ziva pushed her plate away sharply.

It had been Tony’s doing, that muffin. She’d seen his glances, but she had never acknowledged that she had found the stupid muffin.

She could have all the hametz she wanted, now, without needing a Tony to sneak it to her, without having a Donald to frown at her. She could sleep in the woods if she so wanted and no Agent Gibbs would come demanding her return. The gate was locked and the fence was high and he could not get to her. None of them could.

It was Seder night, and she was free.

She pushed the barstool back, standing up suddenly. She picked up the stupid old booklet with two fingers, holding it at an arm’s length, and marched to the bookcase where it resided in the first row, easily visible, as if anyone who lived in this house cared.

They had gotten it wrong anyway, the stupid old rabbis. The bitter herbs for the slavery, that was a lie. Freedom was no less bitter.

 

* * *

 

Tony had waited until he was sure that Dad had fallen asleep in the chair that had taken up permanent residence next to Tony’s bed. The last ten days hadn’t been easy on any of them - not that Tony had any right to complain, this being all his fault and all - and the one time he’d tried to tell his family that he didn’t need constant babysitting, they hadn’t listened to him.

He hadn’t tried a second time. It was easier that way: _quit while you’re behind,_ Pa would always say.

Tim wasn’t as bad. Tim ignored Tony and played with his computer. Abby and Dad always wanted to _talk_ , which Tony didn’t see the point of and half the time he’d lost them less than one minute in anyway. That wasn’t much of an issue with Pa. Pa had only sat with Tony precisely once, after Uncle Tobias had chewed him out. Abby had gotten Tony out of the house with the rest of them, but Tony wasn’t quite that stupid: Pa would never have come within ten feet of Tony if Uncle Tobias hadn’t made him.

Dad was asleep now, though, and this might be the only chance Tony would have. Moving carefully and silently, he got out of his bed and tiptoed downstairs. He’d broken it, he ought to fix it. There was only one way to bring Ziva home, and Tony was the only one who could do it.

He’d grabbed a couple bills on his way out but, otherwise, he’d left everything behind. No cell phone, no car, nothing anyone could use to trace him quickly. He just called a cab from the pay phone two blocks down the road.

He was coming back with Ziva. And if he failed, well. He knew Ziva, too.

If he failed this time, she’d make sure he wouldn’t fail anything anymore.

But he couldn’t think on that right now; he had to focus. Standing in the foyer of Ziva’s father’s house, he figured he had about thirty seconds longer until Ziva was awake and probably pinning him to the ground again. Maybe this time she would skip the knife, but he doubted that.

He must’ve overestimated his own stealth, because the next second the back of his calf exploded with pain, making Tony stumble forward. He landed face-first into the tile, only not smashing his face because Ziva had already grabbed his hair, pulling his head up to press cold metal against his throat. It took Tony several seconds to register that one last detail through the sea of blinding pain, what between the fall, his cast arm hitting the floor, her knees digging into his back with her full weight or the feeling like his scalp was about to come off.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” he said with more forced cheer than he’d thought he could manage.

She pulled at his hair, tracking with her knife-hand, and snarled: “This is not your home.”

He winced, and it wasn’t entirely from the fresh stab of pain. “Can we have this conversation without you giving me more bruises?” he asked, sounding more hopeful than he felt.

“How about some cuts?” she asked sharply, pressing the knife harder and - judging from the burn - drawing blood. “Nothing you don’t deserve.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But if you’re not going to just kill me and get this over with, maybe you can let me sit up,” he replied. His voice sounded incredibly steady, even to his own ears.

Her hand let go of his hair but, a split second later, came down hard on the back of his neck. “You do not make the rules here,” she said.

He winced again, feeling the distant tingle in his hands and feet caused by the sharp blow. “Clearly,” he grit out after his vision cleared, trying to turn his head to the side so she at least wouldn’t be able to break his nose or teeth quite so easily if she got fed up with him.

This earned him the tip of her knife under his chin, and her other hand pressed flat and firm against the side of his neck.

“Is there any reason you’re here, other than to be completely insufferable, as usual?”

He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. She obviously wasn’t in any mood to give him a chance, but he had to try anyway. “Just... listen, please?” He was begging, and he didn’t care at all. He didn’t have the energy to put up a front any more; she would hear him or she would kill him, and that was all.

Her fingers dug into his neck, right over where she’d cut him before. _Death, then,_ Tony thought, but the pressure let up even as his vision was turning dark.

“Talk,” she said shortly.

“I’m sorry.” That was probably the worst thing he could have started with, but he hadn’t actually _planned_ what he was going to say, hadn’t even been sure she would give him the chance or even if he’d really wanted it. But once he started, he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “I didn’t know about your brother, and I don’t know what I would have done, if I had, but I’m sorry that you lost someone you cared about, that -” The barest extra pressure at his neck made him shut up immediately.

Seconds passed. He could hear Ziva’s breath above him, ragged and rapid.

 _This can’t be that easy,_ he thought.

The next second, she said: “I killed him.”

He didn’t even freeze; his body was apparently past that point. He should’ve, though, should have done something, reacted in some way that wasn’t numb shock, just as her voice should have been anything but conversational and businesslike.

“I killed him,” she repeated. This time there was something like a hitch in her voice. “I shot him dead. Put a bullet right through his brain. That big, smart brain of his. He’d thought to use me, so I killed him.”

He stopped himself before he could say _You’re better than me, then_ , and choked out a soft “I’m sorry,” instead.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. He’d never heard her sound so tired. “He’s dead. I killed him. Sorry’s not going to change anything.”

“It _does_ matter,” he insisted, waiting for the moment her fingers would clamp on his artery again. “He was your brother. You shouldn’t have had to make that choice.”

“You keep saying that word like it means something,” she said, fatigue still evident in her voice. “‘Brother.’”

“It means he should have cared about you. Protected you. Done everything in his power to keep you safe.” _Died, and not by turning you into a killer_ , but those words stuck in his throat.

“I’ve always looked after myself,” she said. The words were almost absentminded. Her hand on the side of his throat was just a warm weight against his bruises. The tip of her knife was still under his chin, though. “Why does that even matter, Tony?”

He didn’t get a chance to reply; there was the sound of breaking glass coming from the back of the house and the sharp staccato of gunfire.

Ziva half-dragged Tony out the front door and pushed both of them off the porch. Tony’s broken arm got hit as they fell, unsurprisingly. She pushed him down, very nearly stomping down on his stomach as she pulled herself up. Lying on his back, still recovering from the fall, Tony blinked up at her. The orange glow from the street lamps outside reflected off of something in her hand that wasn’t a knife. Tony registered that even as he registered her position, the set of her shoulders.

Whoever was coming, they were going to get shot.

The gunfire from inside had stopped for a moment, and Tony could hear voices, but not what they were saying; probably searching the house, though their entrance clearly indicated this wasn’t some sort of robbery. His throbbing arm made it hard for him to think, but there weren’t many other options for what these men would want in the David house.

One of them must have been stupid enough to enter Ziva’s line of sight though, because that shot came from above him, the flare of the muzzle blinding for a single instant; the cry of pain from inside said she’d hit her target. A volley of shots came out the front door. Ziva had already crouched for cover before they had figured out where her shot had come from.

“You can’t hide forever, bitch,” a voice called out from inside.

 _Not after her father, then_ , Tony thought.

Ziva said nothing. Tony strained to hear what was going on in the house and thought he heard footsteps approaching the door.

The door creaked open.

Ziva fired twice. There were twin cries, and two thuds as bodies hit the ground. One, two, three seconds later, Ziva looked down at him.

“Your phone,” she demanded.

“Left it at home,” he replied, pushing himself up with his good arm.

“Rule number three,” she snapped at him even as she grabbed his sleeve to help him up. “Inside.”

The young men lying on the floor were still breathing, still bleeding out. Ziva marched right past them, pulling Tony with her, and through the front door. Tony watched as she picked up the phone from its cradle and punched in a number he could recognize just from the dial tones.

Pa must’ve picked up on the first ring.

“We are at my father’s house and we need you,” she said shortly. “Tony and I,” she added a second later, in response to a prompt, and then: “There are three dying ‘bangers on the floor. The neighbours will have called the police.”

He waited until Ziva had hung up with Pa before he found his voice again. “Does this mean you’re done throwing me around for the night, or should I just get back on the floor to make your job easier?” he asked.

Her arm twitched, as if she was tempted to hit him again, but all she said was: “Sit down, shut up, and try to not keel over.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied dryly, offering her a mock salute even as he did as told.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Followed by _Break the Cycle_ (coming July 15).


End file.
